CMP News

Central Maine Power Company, 83 Edison Drive, Augusta, ME 04336 (207) 622-NEWS

Corporate Communications - corpcomm@cmpco.com 

Release: Immediate - An Energy East Company

Storm restoration nears completion
Most customers expected back on line by evening

AUGUSTA, Maine, April 20, 2007, noon  Central Maine Power Company workers, along with an army of crews from other utilities, contractors, and tree companies, continue the final push to restore power to the last of the customers who lost service during the Patriots Day storm. So far, the utility had restored power to about 97 percent of the affected customers.

At 11:30 a.m. Friday, an estimated 3,800 customer accounts remained without service  down from a peak of 127,585 at the height of the storm Monday. Most of these customers are in coastal communities from Falmouth to Bristol, where the damage was most severe and where thousands of downed trees have blocked utility access to storm-damaged areas.

More than 1,200 people are working system-wide in the field and in CMP offices on storm repairs, and as other areas were cleaned up, CMP moved more crews into the hardest hit-areas of Maine's Midcoast.

"Today we have more than 250 lineworkers, 10 pole-setting crews, and about 75 tree crews in the Midcoast working to clean up the last of the downed trees and rebuild the system," says CMP spokesperson Gail Rice. "This stage of the restoration gets very labor intensive, and each repair brings back fewer and fewer customers. We will continue to have crews working around the clock until the last of these customers has power back."

CMP expects to have service restored to customers to the final 300 customers in Greater Portland this afternoon. The utility adds that it hopes to restore power to most of the 3,500 affected customers in the Midcoast area by late this evening, however some customers in the most isolated parts of these peninsula and island communities could be without service into Saturday.

"This has been a difficult restoration effort  in some places, the damage has been worse than what was experienced during the 1998 ice storms," said Rice, who added that the 344 broken poles found after this storm rivals the 350 for Hurricane Bob in 1985. "We appreciate people's patience and the many kind words of support our crews and phone representatives have received over the past few days."

Next update: 4 p.m.

About CMP: Central Maine Power, a subsidiary of Energy East Corporation, operates more than 20,000 miles of power lines and other facilities that deliver electricity to 80 percent of Maine's population. Web site: www.cmpco.com.

About Energy East: Energy East Corporation [NYSE: EAS] is a respected super-regional energy services and delivery company that our customers can depend on every day. We are a motivated and skilled team of professionals dedicated to creating shareholder value through our focus on profitable growth, operational excellence and strong customer partnerships. We serve about 3 million customers throughout upstate New York and New England.

— CMP —